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James Busby
Interviews MediEvil EU site 1998 *'Education': Computer Science at Aston in Birmingham *'Joined Millenium/Sony': March 1996 *'Most Unpleasant Experience': Sleeping in Office BANK Why did you go into games? I've always liked games and I knew I didn't want to work for a bank. What part of the game is your favourite? The bit I'm kind of most proud of is the Stained Glass Demon the first boss, because I wrote him on my own. What's the bit that you spilt the most blood over? The collision between the enemies, that's been a complete nightmare, it's a lot more complicated than collision detection in most games and it's cool because we can use it to do cool stuff, like sticking projectiles on the enemies when they get hurt. On the other hand because it's complicated it can be a bit of a nightmare. How's the geometry then? That fine, MediEvil is very strong on that front in that we've got a lot of polygons in the enemies and that we've got a real 3D world, we don't use sprites at all whereas most games rely heavily on sprites. SCARY Is it scary? In places. Does it scare you? Sometimes, because I get used to some of the levels because I've worked on them but other ones because of the way we split into little mini teams to do different areas, there is probably half of the game that I'm not that familiar with, like the content, the levels. I can play it and get surprised and sometimes a bit scared because I don't know what's coming even though I am working on the project, it's so big and there's so much in there that there is a lot of stuff I haven't seen. EASY LIFE What are your average working day hours like? Two or three late nights a week and then one or two days a weekend Did you know it was going to be like that when you went into games? No, it is more than I expected really, I knew it was the kind of job where you kind of end up working more hours really because you feel that you want to. The thing that annoys me most is everyone says "Oh you must have such an easy life, writing games must be so easy". What's your favourite drink? I don't drink much coffee, I don't drink many fizzy drinks, I drink water and I quite like a cup of tea, basically I'm not a caffeine drinker because it gives me a headache. SLEEP How do you stay awake? I just don't get that tired really, I've always stayed up late ever since I was a little kid. I'd never go to bed so I'm just kind of used to it really. Do you sleep in the office? I have slept in the office, but not on this project. I found it was a really unpleasant experience getting woken up at five am by the cleaners coming round whacking me in the stomach with a vacuum cleaner, so no, I either work all the way through a night and then go home and sleep or I just go home and sleep. Do you go home and drink yourself to sleep? No, I don't drink a lot either. CAMEL Do you drink any alcohol at all? I drink occasionally. What's your favourite PlayStation game? Gran Turismo, at the moment. What is the camel story? He's been around for years really, sort of the MediEvil mascot, he came with a chocolate bar's competition tokens and he's been taken on holiday to five or six places already now: - Cape Town, Greece, America a couple of times, etc. Trivia * Within MediEvil's memory, the following message can be found: "Buzby sucks eggs, and Eastwood smells!" This likely refers to James, who left the project about two months prior to its release as a result of creative differences.RETRO Volume 8, page 130. Published in 2015 by Imagine Publishing Ltd. References Category:Corporate Category:Personnel Category:Sources Category:Interviews